Highlander (1986)

March 8, 1986

SCREEN: 'HIGHLANDER,' WITH SEAN CONNERY

By WALTER GOODMAN

Published: March 8, 1986

What, you may ask, is an actor like Sean Connery doing with fourth-place billing in a movie like ''Highlander''? Well, since you asked, he is a 2,437-year-old Egyptian who shows up in 16th-century Scotland to inform young Connor MacLeod that they are both immortal and that MacLeod must go through the centuries until the climactic ''last gathering'' when the immortals will engage in a duel to the end, for ''there can be only one.''

Yes, the dialogue does sound a little like a commercial for a car rental outfit. Anyhow, No. 1 will be the immortal who lops the head off his last rival. The big lop-off takes place in present-day New York between MacLeod and the monstrous Kurgan, the sort of person who snuffs out the candles in church.

For his brief time on screen, Mr. Connery brings dash and style to the overblown proceedings, but then he loses his head and we're back with much ado about less than nothing.

''Highlander'' began as a senior thesis by a film student at the University of California, Los Angeles named Gregory Widen. A couple of other writers, Peter Bellwood and Larry Ferguson were brought in, and it was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who has a reputation for music videos.

Out of this union of academic excess and pop sensibility has come a cumbersome tale told with noise and flash, and it should surprise nobody if excerpts appear on the music video channel, especially since songs by Queen are part of the hodgepodge of a score that accompanies the action.

The battles are waged with ancient broadswords that infallibly hit electrical circuits, water pipes and anything else capable of setting off a visual commotion. It's like watching a duel between outsized Fourth of July sparklers. When one of the immortals has his head chopped off, he ascends heavenward in a beatific glow and on the wings of spiritual dissonance.

Christopher Lambert, who was Tarzan in ''Greystoke,'' plays MacLeod with a vaguely East European accent and a boyish manner that is odd considering he is four centuries old. His nemesis, Kurgan, who knocks down stone walls with a single swipe, is played by Clancy Brown, specializing in villainous laughs and crazy howls. Roxanne Hart also has some screaming to do as MacLeod's girlfriend, Brenda, who happens to be the author of ''A Metallurgical History of Ancient Sword Making.'' That is probably a joke, and there are others. A policeman looking at a decapitated corpse asks his superior, ''What do you think was the cause of death?'' And there is a duel on Boston Common in which a drunken MacLeod, in his 18th-century incarnation, keeps being run through but cannot die.

But the movie is not especially funny, and of course it is not serious. What is it? There is no point asking for much of a rationale for this sort of exercise, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with a farfetched premise or with hyped-up effects, as long as they make us believe, for a while, that it matters. Since none of the characters makes sense even on the movie's own terms, ''Highlander'' keeps on exploding for almost two hours, with nothing at stake. The Cast HIGHLANDER, directed by Russell Mulcahy; screenplay by Gregory Widen and Peter Bellwood and Larry Ferguson, story by Mr. Widen; director of photography, Gerry Fisher; film editor, Peter Honess; music by Michael Kamen; produced by Peter S. Davis and William N. Panzer; released by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. At Movieland, Broadway at 47th Street; Gotham Cinema, Third Avenue at 58th Street; Loews Orpheum 1, 86th Street near Third Avenue. Running time: 111 minutes. This film is rated R. Connor MacLeodChristopher Lambert Brenda WyattRoxanne Hart KurganClancy Brown RamirezSean Connery HeatherBeatie Edney Lt. Frank MoranAlan North Rachel EllensteinSheila Gish Det. Walter BedsoeJon Polito Sunda KastagirJugh Quarshie Kirk MatunasChristopher Malcolm FasilPeter Diamond Dugal MacLeodBilly Hartman Angus MacLeodJames Cosmo